With the ever-increasing expansion of distributed systems, such as local area network, wide-area networks, public networks, etc., and the associated increased equipments, increases in physical space, power consumption, air-conditioning requirements, heat generation, and other environmental aspects, have become of greater concern not only for the cost in providing these resources but also the effect of the consumption of these resources on the environment. For example, as new equipments are added to the distributed system, the new equipment requires a power connection to the electrical grid and generates heat that requires air conditioning to maintain the new equipment, or the physical location in which the new equipment resides, within a desired temperature range.
Although newer equipment have been designed and developed to occupy less physical space, consume less power, generate less heat and require less air-conditioning, their inclusion in the distributed system typically does not decrease the overall space, power, air-conditioning and heat parameters of the distributed system as older, more power hungry, equipments remain in the distributed system. In some cases, older equipment remains in the distributed system for fear of not knowing exactly the effect of the removal of such older equipment on the distributed system. Thus, rather than having newer equipments replace the older legacy equipment, the new equipment may only replace the function of the older equipment while the older equipment continues to occupy space, consume power, and generate heat.
In addition, as distributed systems first developed, and subsequently expanded, no consider was made to the physical organization of the distributed system components, e.g., router, switches, servers, or the power consumption. Rather, components were located in available locations and as long as there was sufficient available power and air-conditioning, no special consideration was made with regard to the environmental impact of the organizational development of the distributed system.
However, with the increased concern of global warming, there is a need in the industry for providing tools for developing or expanding distributed systems while considering the environmental impact of the existing distributed systems components and introduction of new components.